President Trump may have to wait longer than he prefers to repeal Obamacare.

WASHINGTON — President Trump and Senate GOP leaders are hoping to push forward Obamacare repeal sooner rather than later - but a number of rank-and-file Republicans expressed pessimism about the bill's progress as they unveiled their latest progress during their first conference-wide meeting since a weeklong break.

"I think it's more likely to fail than not," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said as he headed into a lunch meeting with the rest of the Republican conference, saying "differences on Medicaid" were making it difficult to impossible for GOP members to come together on a bill.

And while Republicans sounded more optimistic about the bill's chances coming out of the lunch meeting than going into it, many said they still had a long ways to go.

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) told the Daily News as he exited the meeting that it was a "big umbrella" discussion of the bill lacking in crucial details.

"What the big print giveth the small print taketh away. I'm looking for the small print," he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Republicans have expressed differences on the Medicaid portion of the bill.

(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Trump declared during a Tuesday afternoon meeting with congressional Republican leaders that the Senate would move quickly "and get a bill across the finish line this summer that will be great health care for Americans."

But there's no bill yet. Republicans haven't drafted legislative language on the thorniest issues, and there's no consensus on how to proceed on some major sticking points in the bill. How and whether to unwind states' Medicaid expansion presents the biggest hurdle, as a number of Republican senators in states that expanded coverage are deeply opposed to throwing people off healthcare. Plans to defund Planned Parenthood also risk the votes of a pair of pro-choice female Republican senators.

And time is running short. The Senate has only a few more working weeks this summer, and when it returns this fall it has to deal with impending government funding and debt ceiling fights. The calendar quickly turns to 2018, an election year, after that. Republicans are not only divided on policy over the Obamacare repeal — they're also fighting internally about how quickly they want to get the bill done, with many who have concerns with the bill urging leaders to slow down.

"There's no doubt that keeping members focused on investigations detracts from our legislative agenda, detracts from what we're trying to deliver for the American people," Marc Short, Trump's legislative affairs director, told reporters Monday night.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) insisted he and the rest of a working group of a dozen or so Republicans are "making steady progress" on resolving issues in the bill, but refused to offer a timeline, and only offered a shrug when The News asked him if a Fourth of July vote was possible, as some Republicans have suggested.

While Republican Senate leaders tried to publicly project optimism, they repeatedly ducked when pressed about a possible timeline and refused to discuss any specifics of the bill they're drafting behind closed doors.

"We're getting closer to bringing up a proposal that we can bring up in the near future," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday afternoon, rejecting questions both on the timing of the bill and broad questions about Medicaid. "We're getting close to having a proposal to whip and to take to the floor."